Indian Airlines Flight 814

Indian Airlines Flight 814 was an Indian Airlines Airbus A300 which was hijacked by Harkat-ul-Mujahideen on 24 December 1999 while flying from Kathmandu, Nepal to New Delhi, India. Five men wearing red masks hijacked the plane and ordered the pilot to divert the flight towards Lucknow and then to head to Lahore, Pakistan. The plane ran out of fuel and was forced to land in Amritsar, India, and no efforts were made to rescue the passengers. The Pakistani government reluctantly allowed the plane to land at Lahore, understanding that keeping the airport lights turned off would lead to the plane crashing. The plane then took off for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where 27 passengers were released; one male hostage, who had been mortally stabbed by the hijackers, had died before the aircraft landed. The aircraft then headed to Kandahar in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and the Taliban offered to mediate between India and the hijackers. India released captive Islamists Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar in exchange for the release of the passengers, and the hijackers were given ten hours to leave Afghanistan and return to Pakistan..